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I tried to read Diamonds several times but, you're absolutely right: it's slow.

From Russia With Love is one of my all-time favorites. I reread it every couple of years. Read Goldfinger about two years ago.

Finished Diamonds, the ending really isn't a worthy payoff to the story but the emotional impact for Bond works out well enough.

I read From Russia with Love right afterwards, and it's very good but again the payoff really isn't enough for so much fantastic setup, the movie is actually much more satisfying in a lot of ways, the villains are more rounded and get more time to do stuff, especially at the end. Plus, == Bond doesn't get killed in the movie. == Still, quite good.

I was going to put off Dr. No until Jan 1st so I could borrow it for free, at $8 a pop on Kindle (they were $7.00 each for the 50th anniversary of Bond in Cinema in November, went up to $7.99 in Dec) they were affordable but not cheap enough to go hog wild on, but the day after I finished From Russia with Love Amazon had a 1-day special with all the books on Kindle for $1.99 each, so I bought 7 out of the last 9 and since I can borrow 1 per month, I borrowed The Spy Who Loved Me and will borrow The Man with the Golden Gun in February (they are the worst-reviewed Fleming novels in the series).

Anyway, started on Dr. No but have been slow-playing it so far, it's good and is already better than the beginning of the film, but Bond's ability to read situations is still off which is an odd thing to see since it's natural for a person but weird to watch a writer intentionally hobble his character for 2 stories in a row.

Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.

"In Brooklyn, a castle, is where dwell I"

The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.

While listed as a YA book (and author in general), Lemony Snicket's Who Can That Be at This Hour? was hilarious. I think this may be another series by the SoUE author, where he is the main character himself. Lots of literary references, which he doesn't specifically list, and plenty of definitions of vocabulary (vocabulary here being a word that means types of words known and used). Had to read several passages out loud to other people.

A bit late getting to it because of the Christmas hecticness, but I'm mostly through an advance-readers' copy of Scoundrels.

Holy crap, this is an awesome book, even if it has to double-retcon why Lando is mad at Han in ESB. Zahn is so damned good at Star Wars, you totally don't mind that he apparently can't write a single SW book without tossing in one or more of his Thrawn Trilogy characters to a situation where they shouldn't make sense--but he makes it all make sense.

I would be happy only reading new SW books by Zahn and Luceno from this point onward. Truth be told, though, I'd be even happier if Watson and Stackpole were brought back into the fold and the four of them wrote all the SW books. (Okay, maybe an occasional "guest spot" by Salvatore.)

I will use that "zit on Miss America's nose" cliche with this book: after finishing it, I would consider Scoundrels to be Zahn's "worst" SW novel. :blasphemy: I did like it, but compared to his other awesome stories, this one was only pretty good. Lando's appearance and actions were the best parts, along with some of the "team" (but most of them were blah to me). I liked the Usual Suspects cover parody.

Really? I thought it was probably his best since the Vision of the Future duology, and that he did a good job creating backup characters who could hold their own alongside Han, Chewie, Lando, and Winter. Dozer was especially memorable.

And that last line. Wow. THAT is how you handle a twist. Did not see that coming at all.

BTW, want to make bets on how long until they put out the Zahn novel where Dayja collects his debt from Lando?

Really? I thought it was probably his best since the Vision of the Future duology, and that he did a good job creating backup characters who could hold their own alongside Han, Chewie, Lando, and Winter. Dozer was especially memorable.

And that last line. Wow. THAT is how you handle a twist. Did not see that coming at all.

BTW, want to make bets on how long until they put out the Zahn novel where Dayja collects his debt from Lando?

I will give you that about the line.

I've been trying to come up with why I would rank (see upcoming list LISTS... :drool: below) it lower, and I think it's twofold: one, I don't see Han as a team planner/leader like that; two, being in the same place and planet lost the vastness of space that Zahn works so well into his stories. Don't get me wrong; it was good. Just not Zahn Reputation good. In fact, I won’t put it as #10 (I forgot that I didn’t like that duology much, myself).

On the last few chapters of Dr. No, it went into really thrilling towards the middle and had a great face-off with the villain, but the pacing is feeling very similar to previous books, and then Bond fights a giant squid and it lost me - just lost me right out, I didn't even want to continue as I'd rather have a day to scrub my brain of that moment, anything in the movies now seems entirely reasonable compared to BOND FIGHTING A GIANT SQUID. Invisible car? BOND STABBED A GIANT SQUID IN THE EYE WITH A LENGTH OF WIRE!

Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.

"In Brooklyn, a castle, is where dwell I"

The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.

Dream Team by Jack MacCallum. Yup a book about the Dream Team, the group of US pro's that won their games by an average of 44? points in the 1992 Tournament of the America's and the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. It was a quick but interesting read, some interesting nuggets in the book.

But I didn't think there were any Denver players or coaches on the Dream Team...

Oh man, that was awful punmanship.

On the other hand, the reason it was called "The Dream Team" was partly that there were no Denver Nuggets players or coaches.

Finished Dr. No's last 2 chapters, pretty much exactly the same pace and style to the ending as From Russia With Love and Diamonds Are Forever, but at least someone got buried to death in bird dung. To be honest, I was left very unsatisfied by the last chapter not having some response from M., but Bond's telegraph to him did drop my jaw - Q can officially suck it, I guess.

Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.

"In Brooklyn, a castle, is where dwell I"

The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.